


A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

by Radiday



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 18:56:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16918470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiday/pseuds/Radiday
Summary: Fred has another coma dream.





	A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

“Fred Andrews, you have had your mother worried sick.” 

His eyes drift open to the bright white of a hospital room. He looks around for Archie, but instead sees another familiar face. “Dad?”

“Hey there, son. It’s about time.” Artie looks as healthy as ever. Not sick, not dying. He looks as strong as Fred wants to remember him. He sits on the blue vinyl chair at the side Fred’s bed. 

_ No, this can’t be happening. _ “I-wha, Dad? How can you-,” Fred says, lifting his head. 

He feels his father’s large hand on his chest. “No, no. Stay down. You’re in no condition to move around.” 

“I feel fine…” Fred says hazily. He takes stock of his body, only to find he’s not lying. He expected getting shot to feel a little worse than this. “How do I feel fine."

“‘Cuz you can’t feel anything bad up here, Freddy.” Fred looks up to see the door flying open, watches as a young man walks into the room tossing a baseball in the air. 

He tosses the baseball to Fred, who catches it in one swift motion, even though he doesn’t mean it. Almost like magic. “Oscar?” Fred whispers. 

“Hey little brother,” Oscar draws out. “You got old.” 

“You look-,” Fred starts, looking from his brother to his father, then back again, “exactly the same. I don’t understand. What’s happening?” He watches as Artie and Oscar share a look, and the painful reality sets in. “Am I dead?”

Oscar laughs, motioning for Fred to toss the ball back. He does. “No, dummy,” he says, catching the ball and rolling it in between his hands. “Not yet anyways.”

“Oscar!” Artie chides from his seat. 

“What? He keeps this up any longer, he’ll be as good as gone,” Oscar says, gesturing to Fred.

“Wait, what-,” Fred starts, voice cracking in his throat. 

“For god’s sake, Oscar,” Artie interrupts. “You see your brother for the first time in thirty years and this is how you treat him?” 

“Can I just-,” Fred tries again.

“Oh, come on, Dad,” Oscar says, rolling his eyes. “If we’re nice to him, he’s gonna wanna stick around! He can’t stay here. He’s gotta go back!”

“Go back where?” Fred says louder than he intended, eyebrows and forehead furrowed in concern. “What is this place?” He looks around and throws the covers off his leg in an attempt to get up. Artie stops him again, then shares a look with Oscar. 

Artie sighs. “What do you remember, son?”

“I was in Pop’s, and then I was here. That’s it.”

Oscar sits down at the foot of Fred’s bed. “You got shot, Freddy.”

“I know that, but-”

“You’re in surgery. And they’re losing you,” Artie supplies, taking Fred’s hand in between his own. 

“So I  _ am _ dead?”

“No, son,” Artie says. “You’re dying.”

“And you’re here to come get me?” Fred says.

Oscar bolts up, throwing his hands up in frustration. “No, you fool! Have you not been listening to a word we’ve said? We’re here to make sure you go back. It’s not your time yet.” 

“I don’t unders-”

Oscar waves his hands wildly as he speaks. “Dude,” he says, getting nose to nose with Fred like he used to do when they were children. “Listen to the words coming out of my mouth. You are dying right now. It’s up to you whether that actually happens or not. We’re just here,” he says, standing up straight,  pointing to Artie and then to himself, “to make sure you make the right choice.”

“Which is-”

Oscar rolls his eyes. “It’s like you got dumber over the years, Fred-O.  _ Which is _ that you need to back down to Earth and take care of the doofus boy of yours.”

“Oscar!” Artie scolds. 

“He’s not a doofus!” Fred says as the same time. “And his name is Archie,” he adds, more quietly.  

“I know what his name is. Lord knows why you picked such a ridiculous name. Archibald?  _ Really _ , Fred? It’s like you wanted him to get beat up on the playground,” Oscar says, exasperated. “Look, all I’m saying is that doofus breeds doofus. It’s nobody’s fault,” he finishes, shrugging. 

“Oscar,” Artie says, voice low with warning, like they’re kids again, “don’t think I can’t still ground you.” 

That makes Fred laugh. The room grows painfully quiet and he finally says, “So- so I have a choice?”

Oscar opens his mouth to yell but Artie swats him away. “Yes, son.” 

Fred swallows, nodding, thinking. His mind is suddenly moving a mile a minute. One minute he’s laughing with his dead brother and the next he’s filled with rage at the men that stand before him.  “So you both- you had a choice?”

“Son-,” Artie starts. He’d been waiting for this. 

Fred’s undeterred. “You had a choice, and you chose to leave me?”

Oscar, suddenly serious, comes back to sit on the foot of the bed. “Not everybody gets a choice, Freddy. We didn’t.” 

“No,” Fred says, voice rising with every word. “You just said that we get a choice. You can’t keep changing the rules. You had a choice, and you both chose to leave?” He turns to his father, a snarl on his face. “What was it then, huh? You’re favorite son was gone so you thought, ‘What the hell? Fuck Fred! I don’t need to stick around for his life!’”

“No, Freddy,” Artie says, voice as calm as ever. “Never. You’re brother’s right. Not everybody gets a choice. But you do.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Fred shouts. 

“Hey,” Oscar says, his tone sad and soft for the first time since Fred get here. “You’re in limbo right now. Dad and I, we didn’t go to limbo. I never wanted to leave you, Freddy. I swear.”

“We know it’s confusing,” Artie adds, thumbing Fred’s hairline. 

“But why can’t I stay?” Fred says, his voice suddenly childlike like he’s begging his dad to stay at the state fair til dark. “I missed you.”

“They need you down there more, son,” Artie says. “Besides, we’re not going anywhere. We’ll be here when you come back. When it’s your time.”

“Which it’s not,” Oscar adds, chucking the baseball back at Fred, trying to lighten the mood. 

Artie looks at his older son and smiles. “Which it’s not,” he repeats to his youngest, prying the ball from Fred’s hands and setting it on the table next to him. “Archie needs you. He’s going to need you. You’re not done living yet, Fred.”

Fred’s not convinced. “But-,” he starts. 

“Hey,” Oscar says, calling his attention. “Remember that night when you found Dad? Remember how awful it was? How you thought it was your fault?”

“Which it wasn’t,” Artie interjects. 

Oscar nods in acknowledgement. “Do your really want Archie to feel like that?”

How did you know-,” Fred starts, suddenly feeling broken yet whole, all at once. 

“We see everything up here, Freddy. You really want your son to have to go through what you did?”

Fred shakes his head, lets out a watery, “No.”

“Then, go,” Oscar continues. There’s a pounding on the hospital room door. “You don’t have much time."

The pounding grows louder, until Fred can swear he feels his bed shake. 

“You have to go now, son,” Artie says, eying the door nervously. 

Fred nods solemnly, allowing himself a moment to take in his father and brother one last time. “I love you,” he says, and the words come out as naturally as if he’d gotten to say it to them every day for the last thirty years. 

“We love you too, son. We never stopped. And we’re always here,” Artie says. 

“But you gotta go, little brother,” Oscar says as the door starts to open. “You’re running out of time.” 

“I-”

“We love you, man,” Oscar says, suddenly sounding far away. His voice grows quieter and his image blurry. “We’ll see you when we see you. Tell mom we said hi.”

They’re gone as quickly as they came, the angelic white suddenly replaced with black. It’s not frightening, but it is suddenly intensely lonely.  The pain hits him like a brick wall. He tries to open his eyes, see if he’s still where he was, but he can’t. 

He hears an unfamiliar voice, closer than his brother’s, like they’re speaking right into his ear. “Welcome back, Fred,” it says. “We thought we lost you.” 

Another voice, still foreign, deeper, speaks next. “Put him back under. I’m not done yet. We need to get the bullet out.”

That’s the last thing he hears, drifting off into space and darkness. 

This time, he doesn’t dream.


End file.
